Cher is celebrating her 80th birthday. Born Cheryl Sarkisian, the pop icon and Academy Award-winning actress is one of Hollywood’s most powerful emblems, remaining a key part of culture no matter how much time passes.
Today, Cher kicked off her birthday by sharing some sweet photos on her Instagram, showing her as a baby in her mother’s arms. In our case, to commemorate all of her glory, we’ve built a gallery of Cher’s most incredible love stories, tracking her relationships with figures like Warren Beatty, Val Kilmer, and Tom Cruise, to her current boyfriend, AE Edwards. Happy birthday, Cher!
New Cher lore drops every year. In 2018, she revealed that she was briefly in a relationship with Warren Beatty when she was 16, and he almost ran her over with a car. She told him off, she said to Elle. “Then I looked at his face, and I thought, ‘My God, it’s Warren Beatty.’” It appears the relationship was very informal, but still. Warren Beatty! “But you can’t call it a relationship….It was very Warren.”
Cher and Sonny Bono had a son, Chaz Bono, and a very successful band, “Sonny & Cher.” The couple was married for 11 years, with their relationship going through numerous ups and downs, including a contentious divorce. Still, when he died in 1998, Cher spoke at his funeral.
“He was smart enough to take an introverted 16-year-old girl and a guy with a bad voice and turn them into the most successful, beloved couple of our generation,” She said. “He allowed himself to be the butt of our jokes, but people don’t realize he created Sonny and Cher.”
After dating other people, Cher married her second husband, Greg Allman, from the Allman Brothers band. They were married for four years, sharing one son, Elijah Blue Allman. She revealed that the reason for their divorce was Greg’s drug abuse.
In the late ’70s, Cher was dating Gene Simmons, the co-lead of the glam rock band Kiss. In a 1979 interview with PEOPLE, Cher revealed that the two had a very relaxed relationship, with her seeking other men for “companionship,” but that Simmons was the only one she was “crazy about.”
“All my relationships are serious. I don’t screw around.”
Cher and Val Kilmer attend the 36th Annual Tony Awards After Party on June 6, 1982
Cher and Val Kilmer dated for a few years, with her sharing how difficult it was to find men who respected and treated her as an equal. She said that Kilmer was never intimidated by her and that the two maintained a loving relationship.
In his memoir, Kilmer wrote about her fondly, sharing a story of a time when he was sick and she checked out his paramedic. “And yet even in my grave condition, I saw her scanning the paramedic, who was Gregory Peck drop-dead handsome,” he wrote. “Only in Hollywood, right? Despite the fact that I was covered in blood, I caught her eye and bounced my brows like Groucho Marx. Hubba hubba. Cher was bashful to be busted but then couldn’t help laughing out loud at the audacity.”
Years before Tom Cruise became one of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars, he and Cher met at a White House event that invited various dyslexic celebrities. The two first met there, and started dating years later. “It was a long, long time ago, and neither one of us ever talked about it, and I don’t know why,” she said in a 2008 interview with Entertainment Tonight.
“When we were together, he was such a private person. He always has been until lately…Now it’s hard for me to look at this person and this press. How many times can I watch him jumping up and down on Oprah’s couch?”
Cher’s current relationship is with the rapper Alexander Edwards, with the two starting to date in 2022. They share a 40 year age gap, which Cher has addressed on different occasions. “On paper, it’s kind of ridiculous. But in real life, we get along great. He’s fabulous. And I don’t give men qualities that they don’t deserve,” she said in an appearance on “The Kelly Clarkson Show.”
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